D&D General Does anyone else title their D&D sessions?

[Blue]

Since a few of us are adding updates, here's the list of adventures we've completed in my "Dreams of Erthe" campaign since the last time I posted in this thread:

21. Hell Toupee
22. The League of Beasts
23. Land of the Wild Moogles
24. Hyena Arena
25. Rindicane's Window
26. Serpentine Dreams
27. Raiders of the Lost Orcs

We're on hold for a bit now as one of our players is recovering from surgery, but next up will be "Desert Dreams."

Johnathan

If I recall, Hell Toupee was an Amazing Stories episode.

Found it! "Amazing Stories" Hell Toupee (TV Episode 1986) - IMDb

 

[Richards]

Interesting. Mine dealt with a creature I found in a Pathfinder Bestiary, the "animate hair," which I used as a fiendish creature which dominated whoever wore it - in this case, the bald structural engineer who took the PCs down to explore the underground level beneath a collapsed wizard's tower. The animate hair ended up taking him over and the PCs had to deal with him as well as the other creatures they unearthed during the course of the adventure.

I guess some puns are just waiting to be rediscovered.

Johnathan

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I don't title sessions. Although I'm thinking this may be a good way to help remember what went on in a given session. SO I might give it a go.

But I do title adventures/arcs/story lines. In the urban fantasy game (set in London, 1986) I'm just about to start I have two adventure ideas ready to go:

An American Werewolf at Crufts
The Highlander Murders

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In general, I do not title individual sessions, but occasionally that happens. More often it's a title or concept for a sequence of sessions focused on one topic. E.g., the party Druid gave the name for the time they investigated a Kahina shrine located beneath the marshy headwaters of the main river in the region, which had just had a forest fire due to an enemy attack. He called it "Charred Marsh Grotto," and made an (actually pretty funny) WoW-like reference to "shouting" an LFG in general chat.

 

[beancounter]

Yes, we keep a campaign log and name every session. Here's a sample:

Campaign Session 41 - Heart in a Box
Campaign Session 42 - Vampire: The Masquerade
Campaign Session 43 - Aberrations!... and other stuff
Campaign Session 44 - Not all pudding is good to eat
Campaign Session 45 - The Goblin Bazaar
Campaign Session 46 - Yek the Not-So-Tall
Campaign Session 47 - No, really, you can't go through the gates
Campaign Session 48 - Boulder Traps: Why the tank always goes first
Campaign Session 49 - Retreat? I don't know the meaning of retreat.
Campaign Session 50 - Can't you smell that smell, the smell of death that surrounds you?
Campaign Session 51 - The betrayal of Marta Moonshadow
Campaign Session 52 - Through the Contested Cavern of the Hobgoblins
Campaign Session 53 - The Gob Gobbler and the Ambassador
Campaign Session 54 - Skullport
Campaign Session 55 - Skullport, part 2 - The copper dragonborn and the half drow
Campaign Session 56 - Come and knock on our (false) door, we've been waiting for you.
Campaign Session 57 - Skull Island
Campaign Session 58 - Jibber Jabber the ettin
Campaign Session 59 - The Chimera and the "toll" portal
Campaign Session 60 - The Return of the Drow
Campaign Session 61 - Spiders and Driders
Campaign Session 62 - There is Trouble in the Forest.
Campaign Session 63 - Little Miss Strange
Campaign Session 64 - The Dagger and the Duergar
Campaign Session 65 - The Silence of the Troglodytes
Campaign Session 66 - Just Bear With Me
Campaign Session 67 - Wyllow's Tower and the Entrance to Melair's Tomb (Glittering Caverns)
Campaign Session 68 - Bats! Where bats? No, werebats!
Campaign Session 69 - Werebats Defeated
Campaign Session 70 - Descent into Melair's Tomb
Campaign Session 71 - The Invisible Stalkers and the Privy of Doom
Campaign Session 72 - Slaadi Salad
Campaign Session 73 - The Angry Green Dragon and the Nigh Invulnerable Rogue
Campaign Session 74 - The Tomb of Melair Discovered!
Campaign Session 75 - The Tomb of Melair Plundered!
Campaign Session 76 - Hallaster Toys With the Party
Campaign Session 77 - Albrect's Rescue
Campaign Session 78 - Plans? What Plans?
Campaign Session 79 - Jibber Jabber's Betrayal
Campaign Session 80 - Act II - Kill the Mind Flayer
Campaign Session 81 - Ulquist's Last Stand

 

[Gradine]

I approach my campaigns as I would a TV series; arcs are sessions, sessions are episodes. I usually name them as well.

 

[Richards]

The names of the adventures since the last time I updated my list:

28. Desert Dreams
29. The Wounds That Do Not Heal
30. Platoon of the Dead
31. Night After Night
32. Ghoulish Ambition
33. Birth Day Massacre
34. Underdark Trails
35. Dreamstone Vision
36. The Temple of Burning Desire
37. The Blood Diamond
38. Nest Quest
39. Pregnant Pause
40. Hog Wild
41. Fox on the Run
42. Dead Man's Party
43. A Sudden Brainstorm
44. The Clockwork Dragon of Tallhat Canyon
45. Formless Dread

I see I'm still making the occasional reference to musicians or song titles ("Birth Day Massacre," "Fox on the Run," "Dead Man's Party"), playing around with puns and wordplay ("Hog Wild" dealt with a wild boar hunt, "Pregnant Pause" dealt with a pregnant woman in dream coma stasis), and using a rhyming title when the opportunity presents itself ("Nest Quest").

Johnathan

 

[el-remmen]

I thought I might as well share the titles of the last 10 or so sessions of my Ghosts of Saltmarsh+ campaign before we started with a new set a characters elsewhere in the setting to do a ToEE-based campaign.

• Session #36 - "The Wicked Wyckwax" [Saturday, April 2, 2 pm]
• Session #37 - "Troll Call" [Saturday, April 16, 1 pm]
• Session #38 - "Loose Ends & Aftermath" [Saturday, June 18, 2022 - 1 pm]* + 2nd Annual Post-Gaming Grill Down!
• Session #39 - "Many Meetings" [Saturday, July 9, 2 pm]
• Session #40 - "The Final Enemy (part 1)" [Saturday, August 13, 2 pm]
• Session #41 - "The Final Enemy (part 2)" [Saturday, September 24, 2 pm]
• Session #42 - "The Final Enemy (part 3)" [Friday, October 28, 6 pm]
• Session #43 - "Assault on the Sahuagin Lair" [Saturday, December 3, 2 pm]
• Session #44 - "Escape from the Sahuagin Lair" [Saturday, December 31, 3 pm]*
• Session #45/Session #0 - "New Beginnings" [Saturday, February 4, 2 pm]

 

[ilgatto]

I like how this thread led to people actually coming up with lists of names for sessions, so here goes.

I've been making notes of all sessions I ran and played since I started playing way back when - and I have been naming sessions as long as that, usually retro-actively when I was the DM and often during play or right after it as a player. In all of this time, I can recall not much more than one or two instances where a DM other than myself had a name for a session, or even for the adventure if it was homegrown. Oh well.

Like many of you upthread, these session names run the gamut from puns, to variations on a theme, to catchphrases that apply to what actually happened during a session - sometimes with tongue-in-cheek references to ... other stuff - to combinations of all or some of the above.

For example, when a long-running campaign featuring PCs ending up greatly involved with a Thieves' Guild ended and a new one started featuring street urchins part of said TG, it didn't take long before it was dubbed "New Kids on the Block", and therefore:

I: Back Street Boyz
II: Nu Kidz On Da Up
III: Nailed
IV: Nu Kidz On Da Run
V: Nu Kidz On Da Road
VI: Blackout
VII: Back Street's Back
VIII: Nu Kidz In Da House
IX: Hangin' Tough
X: Step By Step
XI: Boyz II Men
XII: Up To Speed
XIII: (unnamed)
XIV: Move It On Up

To think I don't even like boy bands... Obviously, YMMV.

In another example, the first session of another campaign I played somehow led to the notion that all sessions were gonna be named after iconic or pulpy 80s songs and movies (or from the 70s when glaringly obvious because of events), for:

I: Sign o' the Times
II: Enter the Dragon
III: Boys--Boys--Boys
IV: Pet Cemetery
V: Clash of the Titans
VI: Two Thousand Years
VII: Flesh 4 Fantasy
VIII: Dungeon Time Again
IX: You Take My Self--You Take My Self Control
X: Tainted Love
XI: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
XII: Church of the Poison Mind
XIII: Break on Through
XIV Break on Through Some More
XV: Stairway to Heaven

In another, short-lived instance, I used sessions titles to express displeasure at how a notoriously brutal and contrary DM went about handling Vale of the Mage:

I: Big Problems
II: Familiar Problems
III: Problems As Usual, part I
IV: Problems As Usual, part II

So that was four sessions with the PCs being seriously beaten at every corner (by a single, strangely omnipotent orc shaman, mind you - sorry, emotions still running high) and not even getting close the vale.

 

[collin]

When I ran my Eberron adventures, I titled the sessions like chapters from a pulp novel. Some examples are:
1. Death on the Docks
2. There and Back Again
3. The Wonderful World of the Renegade Artificer of Dirz
4. Bring Me the Head of Darwell Umbruskor
5. Interlude of Carnage
6. Won't Get Fooled Again
7. All is Revealed
8. Port of Call